Page 91 of I’m The Worst

That’s all he gives me.

My eyes grow heavy, but I fight it.

“I had to drink.” Shame burns my cheeks as I think about how he found me. “I couldn’t stop seeing everything. I didn’t know how to shut it off.”

His hand keeps moving over my back. It makes it worse. Or better. I don’t know. It makes something in my chest flutter in a way I’m not used to.

“I just needed it to stop.”

Silence settles again, broken only by his breathing and the quiet slide of his hand. Sleep pulls at me, hard and insistent.

I don’t want it.

If I fall asleep, this ends. He’ll stop touching me. He’ll pull away. Go back to being…him.

So I keep talking.

“I knew a girl,” I say softly, the words coming out of nowhere—and not. My throat tightens. I stare at nothing, but all I see are the cages. The way they were stacked. The smell. “Those cages…the ones in the warehouse. They looked exactly like the ones they kept me in.”

A breath shudders out of me.

“I never knew her name. I don’t know what language she spoke. I couldn’t understand anything she said.” I blink, but it doesn’t clear anything. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

His hand slows just slightly before I continue.

“She was young. Really young. I started calling her ‘Bird.’ She just…felt like something that didn’t belong in a cage. I tried to talk to her anyway. Didn’t matter that we couldn’t understand each other. It was…something. Better than nothing.”

My fingers trail the scars on his chest, his hard muscles twitching beneath them.

“They’d take us at different times. Different days. Sometimes, they’d grab her first, and I’d beg them to leave her alone. To take me instead. It didn’t matter.”

His touch presses slightly harder into my back.

“One time, they brought her back…and she wasn’t the same.” The words feel wrong even as I say them. “She didn’t look at me anymore. Didn’t speak. Like whatever was inside her died. And then one morning, she was gone.” My chest constricts, something ugly clawing its way up.

“I stopped asking why after that. It didn’t matter. None of it did. I figured it out eventually. Why I was there.” I swallow past my burning throat. “The Sovereign’s sins have a price. Blood follows us everywhere, whether we want it to or not. I could understand it for me. I was born into that world. I knew what my father was. What all of the Sovereign are. I knew what that meant for me. But she was just a kid. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t⁠—”

“You didn’t fucking deserve it.” He grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You are not responsible for any fucking choice a Sovereign makes. Your father’s sins are his. Not yours.”

Something shifts in his expression—not softer. Just darker and…protective.

“The blood the Sovereign spills? That doesn’t touch you.” He holds me tighter. “That’s on bastards like me. Men who pull the trigger. Men who know exactly what they’re doing every fucking time.”

It feels like someone reached into my chest and ripped something out. I want to believe him. I’d give anything to. But I don’t even know where to start.

“What happened to you isn’t your fault, AJ. It never was.”

The burn behind my eyes has more tears falling. I press closer to him, not fighting it, my face turning into his neck as his hand comes up, threading through my hair.

I don’t want to let go.

Not yet.

His scent wraps around me, warm and grounding, and I breathe it in deep, letting it settle somewhere under my ribs, somewhere I can hold on to. Just for a little longer.

The windshield wipers fight the storm, scraping back and forth as thick snow blankets the road. We stayed in the cabin a few more nights, but Wolff said it wasn’t safe anymore.

He didn’t hold me again.